We're relatively late up today - 7.30
The shower in the room is working OK now thank goodness/
breakfast not at the hotel but at the Peachtree Center's food court that you can get to via an underground walkway directly from the hotel's lobby.
I go for the "Ultimate Grilled Chicken Omelette" from "Great Wraps Grill", which comes with toast, hashbrown and a coffee. $8
We do a bit of last day shopping, particularly for US sweets that you cant get at home, to take home with us.
We take a short walk down Peachtree, just a couple of blocks to the Dunkin Donuts shop (opposite the hotel we stayed at for 3 nights 2 weeks ago) for an espresso, then walk back to room 2260 to finish getting the bags packed up and weight checked.
For transport to the Airport, we're gonna try the MARTA underground from Peachtree Centre station. which has a direct line to the airport, about 5 stops.
Our flight is due to depart at 18.45 and we have to be out of the room by 1 PM.
From the hotel we each manhandle 1 roll along suitcase and 2 cabin bags down to Peachtree underground station where we buy a single journey ticket at $3.50 each. The train arrives immediately and its not crowded. This line terminates at the airport, at the domestic departures terminal. Since our first leg is to Chicago, that counts as domestic, so we go to the United check-in area and use the self-service check in terminal to produce our boarding passes for both legs. Then then check in our suitcases, which is checked right through to London.
Next it's security. Everybody has the full body scan treatment, but again, it's not busy so it doesn't take long.
Our gate is T13, and we make our way there, buy a bit of lunch from the deli, and relax and wait.
Maybe because the 1st leg is 'domestic;, but there's not a lot of shopping in this the North terminal, in fact , as you wait near your gate, rather than in a central concourse, There is, however, sufficient.
Flight 1067 is called for boarding, and departs on time. For the return trip we're flying with United Airlines on an Airbus 320, up to Chicago, a distance probably about the same as Southampton-Edinburgh. There's complimentary drinks during the flight, but beer is extra.
The weather on arrival in Chicago is sunny. Chicago is 1 hour behind Atlanta (so 6 behind the UK) which is just as well, otherwise we'd have only about 10 mins to make the transfer).
We come into the terminal at gate B4, check the departure monitor screens at the terminal and see that UA938 is assigned to depart from gate C20. We traverse over from the B concourse to the C concourse (down an escalator, over a few travelators and then up an escalator), and there we easily find gate C20. It#s taken us only about 10 minutes gate to gate. At the gate they announce a slight delay to departure. There's much better shops to be found here, compared to Atlanta, and there's a Duty Free, which I was hoping to find, and take advantage of it to bag a couple of bottles. What happens here is... at the duty free till, you pay for your goods and they bag them for you, attaching a numbered, coloured ticket, and staple a similar ticked to your boarding pass - you leave the goods with them. Later, as you are called to board, the duty free shop assistant is there at the gate to hand your purchases over. It worked.
We're seated near the back of the plane, in row 38, 1 window seat and 1 aisle seat (this Boeing 767-300 has a cabin seat plan of 2-3-2) so that's quite good for a travelling couple.
I set my watch forward 6 hours,and we take the in-flight dinner - at 4 AM!
After that I manage to get a few hours sleep. The alarm on my phone wakes me at 07:30, a left over alarm set from yesterday. Eventually I wake up at about 10:00, and shortly after they serve our breakfast (yogurt, croissant, coffee), It's not bad. We're due to land at about 11:20. I sit back and listen to the country channel on the in flight radio.
Despite leaving Chicago late, we arrive at Heathrow on schedule, Probably the 160 MPH tail wind helped. We de-board into Terminal 2. It's very quiet (good) and soon we're passing swiftly through passport control and onto baggage retrieval. No waiting anywhere. Once out in the main arrivals concourse I give taxi driver, Jim a call, and within 30s he's standing beside me. We waste no time in getting on the road down to Hythe, arriving home at about 2 PM.
Now for the downside of going away - the chores to do when you get back, but hey ho!
The shower in the room is working OK now thank goodness/
breakfast not at the hotel but at the Peachtree Center's food court that you can get to via an underground walkway directly from the hotel's lobby.
I go for the "Ultimate Grilled Chicken Omelette" from "Great Wraps Grill", which comes with toast, hashbrown and a coffee. $8
We do a bit of last day shopping, particularly for US sweets that you cant get at home, to take home with us.
We take a short walk down Peachtree, just a couple of blocks to the Dunkin Donuts shop (opposite the hotel we stayed at for 3 nights 2 weeks ago) for an espresso, then walk back to room 2260 to finish getting the bags packed up and weight checked.
For transport to the Airport, we're gonna try the MARTA underground from Peachtree Centre station. which has a direct line to the airport, about 5 stops.
Our flight is due to depart at 18.45 and we have to be out of the room by 1 PM.
From the hotel we each manhandle 1 roll along suitcase and 2 cabin bags down to Peachtree underground station where we buy a single journey ticket at $3.50 each. The train arrives immediately and its not crowded. This line terminates at the airport, at the domestic departures terminal. Since our first leg is to Chicago, that counts as domestic, so we go to the United check-in area and use the self-service check in terminal to produce our boarding passes for both legs. Then then check in our suitcases, which is checked right through to London.
Next it's security. Everybody has the full body scan treatment, but again, it's not busy so it doesn't take long.
Our gate is T13, and we make our way there, buy a bit of lunch from the deli, and relax and wait.
Maybe because the 1st leg is 'domestic;, but there's not a lot of shopping in this the North terminal, in fact , as you wait near your gate, rather than in a central concourse, There is, however, sufficient.
Flight 1067 is called for boarding, and departs on time. For the return trip we're flying with United Airlines on an Airbus 320, up to Chicago, a distance probably about the same as Southampton-Edinburgh. There's complimentary drinks during the flight, but beer is extra.
The weather on arrival in Chicago is sunny. Chicago is 1 hour behind Atlanta (so 6 behind the UK) which is just as well, otherwise we'd have only about 10 mins to make the transfer).
We come into the terminal at gate B4, check the departure monitor screens at the terminal and see that UA938 is assigned to depart from gate C20. We traverse over from the B concourse to the C concourse (down an escalator, over a few travelators and then up an escalator), and there we easily find gate C20. It#s taken us only about 10 minutes gate to gate. At the gate they announce a slight delay to departure. There's much better shops to be found here, compared to Atlanta, and there's a Duty Free, which I was hoping to find, and take advantage of it to bag a couple of bottles. What happens here is... at the duty free till, you pay for your goods and they bag them for you, attaching a numbered, coloured ticket, and staple a similar ticked to your boarding pass - you leave the goods with them. Later, as you are called to board, the duty free shop assistant is there at the gate to hand your purchases over. It worked.
We're seated near the back of the plane, in row 38, 1 window seat and 1 aisle seat (this Boeing 767-300 has a cabin seat plan of 2-3-2) so that's quite good for a travelling couple.
I set my watch forward 6 hours,and we take the in-flight dinner - at 4 AM!
After that I manage to get a few hours sleep. The alarm on my phone wakes me at 07:30, a left over alarm set from yesterday. Eventually I wake up at about 10:00, and shortly after they serve our breakfast (yogurt, croissant, coffee), It's not bad. We're due to land at about 11:20. I sit back and listen to the country channel on the in flight radio.
Despite leaving Chicago late, we arrive at Heathrow on schedule, Probably the 160 MPH tail wind helped. We de-board into Terminal 2. It's very quiet (good) and soon we're passing swiftly through passport control and onto baggage retrieval. No waiting anywhere. Once out in the main arrivals concourse I give taxi driver, Jim a call, and within 30s he's standing beside me. We waste no time in getting on the road down to Hythe, arriving home at about 2 PM.
Now for the downside of going away - the chores to do when you get back, but hey ho!
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